Mystery Collection Disc 42

Blame it on a mild ongoing headache if you like, esp. one probably connected to eyestrain (a long boring story that goes away soon).

Or blame it on sheer incompetence on the part of the moviemakers.

In either case, after several weeks without watching an oldie, I was looking forward to this. Until it started. I made it through the bizarre credits sequence. I made it through the opening sequence, and to the Real Plot, where this apparently well-off middle-aged man is temporarily deserted by his hot young wife on his 40th birthday (there are reasons), and two young women show up at his front door in a driving rainstorm asking directions to a neighbor’s house he’s never heard of.

And we’re off. And after another 10 minutes—his being a gentleman, his rebuffing combined advances from the two young women (both of whom have gotten naked in his palatial bathroom) for, oh, 30 seconds, partial nudity, suggested three-way action, and an odd breakfast the next morning—I couldn’t. I just did not give a damn what happened to anybody in the movie, perhaps immediately following what seemed to be a lengthy still shot of spilled ketchup with multiple layers of music over it.

So this isn’t a review. Maybe this is a minor masterpiece. Maybe it’s noteworthy schlock. Maybe it was the highlight of Sondra Locke’s film career (not sure whether she’s the young woman with a look that suggests that she regularly lunches on crocodile heads). I’ll never know.

After giving up and writing this non-review, I looked up the IMDB reviews. Now that I’ve read them, I’d guess the chances of my ever going back to see the rest of this movie are considerably worse than the chances of my winning Power Ball. (Which I don’t play.) Especially if that damn song gets played again. Not rated.

Maybe I’m getting less patient or maybe I just hit a bad run. This movie is considerably less awful than Seducers, but after getting halfway through (with difficulty) I found that I just didn’t give a damn what happened in the rest of the movie.

It all begins with a storm at sea that kills or badly harms two people on a boat, with the survivor giving his tale to the Gibraltar portmaster the next day and saying he’ll head back out soon, because what’s the point otherwise? Six months later, he’s become a barfly, every day saying he’ll head back out soon… Meanwhile, two young British women (typically wearing relatively little clothing) are hanging out in a cheap hotel, singing and dancing (badly) in the California Club the guy hangs out at, and trying to go…somewhere. (One wants to go back to England; the other doesn’t.) Somehow, they wind up convincing the guy to take them from Gibraltar to Barbados. His estimated time to get to Barbados in a motor-assisted sailboat is four weeks.

Beyond that, it’s various tensions and paranoias, all with a soundtrack that’s hard to hear and a style that’s hard to care about. I gave up. Maybe you’d like it better. (Reading some of the IMDB reviews, I’m not sure why Barbados—the destination mentioned at least a dozen times—gets turned into Bermuda.) Not rated.

By far the best movie on this disc so far—but that only means it was good enough so I watched the whole thing. It involves some solid actors (such as Richard Widmark and Oliver Reed) and a plot that, although it involves a few too many accidental deaths, at least makes a twisted sort of Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy sense.

We open with the start of an auto race, at which one driver is shot at long range. Then a KGB higher-up drops by a CIA outpost-head’s place, they share a drink, they open up this cabinet full of photos, many of them crossed out. Time to cross out another name (another former agent) on one side—and for the next on the other side to come up, since apparently that’s the long game. The next one, in this case, is Gabriel Lee (Reed), a double agent who defected to the Communists—and the action begins, taking us to Israel, where the double agent has an old friend, Sam Lucas (Widmark), an American agent who has supposedly actually retired (which seems implausible) with his wife.

Lots’o’plot after that, with repeated betrayals, until a somewhat flat ending. Near the ending, we get the final twist, such as it is. Along the way, car chases, shootings, explosions—hey, it’s a spy picture. I’m guessing the extra 15 minutes wouldn’t make much difference.

“Sociopath Makes Good”—a better title, and a reason why I don’t feel particularly good about finishing this flick, even though I did so. There’s not one character that I found worthwhile or cared about; Telly Savalas as an important aging Mafioso Don may come close, but not that close. The protagonist is a country boy who comes to the city (Milan, I guess) to make good in the crime scene and shows his cleverness and utter ruthlessness to good effect, eventually moving up to the big leagues, where, of course, he betrays his mentor.

Good Italian and German scenery. Filmed very wide screen and not panned-and-scanned (but it’s not an anamorphic disc: when you zoom, you’re expanding not very much visual information, although it’s watchable). A protagonist (Antonio Sabata) who always uses his full name, Antonio Mancuso, and seems to expect others to do so as well. Overall, it’s…meh. Charitably, $1.00.

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